Saturday, July 25, 2009

On Location

This post is brought to you on location from...The Room. My Dad asked my boyfriend (and me) to help install wiring and insulation in his new addition.

Here is a breakdown of my day:7:30am - Wake up because I am too hot in my old room. Lie in bed wondering if it had always been this hot, perhaps explaining why I prefer warmer temperatures. Decide to check out potentially cooler part of house.8:00am - Eat sausage and eggs for breakfast before heading to The Room. Our first task is to remove a piece of poorly laid (and frankly just poor) plywood. I stare at the offensive flooring while scratching my head, then find an appropriate tool (a prying bar? I think?). After much travel under and below and back again, I finally manage to find the correct piece and lift it from its perch without crushing its neighbors. No electric, insulation, has been done.9:00am - Drill my first pilot hole, to be used in cutting a heating vent in the floor. Fear that I have broken the drill twice. (I didn't.) Fear that I have broken my wrist once. (I didn't.) No electric, insulation, has been done.9:30am - Dad leaves to buy more bits. No electric. No insulation. While he is gone, I figure we can begin drilling holes in the studs for the wiring. After calls to Adam's stepdad about where it might be appropriate to place such a hole, we just measure some existing outlets and guestimate. (Stepdad was not home.) It is around this time that we realize construction talk and porno scripts are quite similar. We begin to make inappropriate comments about our holes and the holes of others. I succeed in placing a nice "X" on each stud...but no electric, insulation, has been done.10:30am - Next task is to trace a location for new duct. Unfortunately, the proposed location is currently covered in aluminum flashing, which is really really hard to remove. Really hard. Take one hour to remove aluminum, and finally, to draw duct hole. No electric. No insulation.11:00am - Mom leaves for bridal shower, and for first time ever, I am jealous that she gets to go to a bridal shower.11:30 am - After successful placement of duct hole, I am told there are four more ducts.2:30pm - Hole #3 requires drilling through the wall to "see if anything's there". I am told "what if I hit something" is an irrelevant question. I do not hit anything, but then can't find my hole on the inside. Traverse back and forth approximately 17 times before hole is found - on both ends. Luckily, the hole works out. No electric and no insulation, have been placed.3:00pm - Begin (drum roll please!) insulation! My sister and I crawl around in a crawl space for the next four hours. My 24 year old sister tells me she is too old for this. I agree. We amuse ourselves with more "construction talk". Like, we prefer a nice tight space - which holds our stuffing well. We wear our latex gloves, and we prematurely shoot our staples. Occasionally we shoot blanks and get stuff in our eyes. We dislike wide spaces - just can't hold our junk in place. And after a while, my hand gets tired from trying to squeeze the tool too much.4:30pm - Mom returns from bridal shower with cookies and tales of shish-kabobs. Poor thing. She suffered so.4:45pm - Adam asks an odd question about whether the screwdriver he is pushing through the floor aligns with a hole for ductwork. No hole exists there, and no circle has been lovingly placed where aluminum used to be. Realize that I have missed a hole mark. But decide to do this later.7:00pm - Weary, stiff, dirty, and sweaty, my sister an I frantically cover the remaining insulation with a tarp as rain drops begin to fall. No electric, but...we (finally) have some insulation!! Woohoo!